


There He Goes

by featherx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Theatre, M/M, Minor Edelgard von Hresvelg/Bernadetta von Varley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: It probably wasn’t Linhardt’s best idea to develop a crush.In his defense, he hadn’t done it on purpose. Dorothea had asked for hisone-timehelp with her show’s technical difficulties, and Ferdinand Aegir had just so happened to walk in the tech booth at the same time Linhardt was working on sounds and lights, and, well.Yeah.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: 2020 Ultra Rarepair Big Bang





	There He Goes

**Author's Note:**

> for the 2020 ultra rarepair big bang, a collab with the wonderful [@Daisy4Smash](https://twitter.com/daisy4smash/status/1300467132271079424?s=21): ferdihardt high school theatre club AU! this is an incredibly niche fic, moreso with the incredibly niche musical choice. if you recognize the song in the fic title then i automatically respect you.
> 
> hope you enjoy! ❤

“Lin!” Dorothea slams open the door, barrels through the protesting members of the newspaper club, and skids to a stop in front of Linhardt, who can only muster enough strength to blink sleepily at her. “There’s an emergency.”

“Eh, really?” Linhardt doesn’t bother hiding his yawn. He glances at the newspaper club members and catches them all glaring at him, unsurprisingly enough. This means he won’t be able to sleep in the publishing room with Bernadetta anymore… at least they’re all too scared of Dorothea to do anything, though. “What is it this time? Did you lose your most expensive eyeliner or something?”

Dorothea growls. “No! Why are you even here? It took me forever to find you! Come on, get out of here, we need to talk.”

Linhardt spouts off some token protests, but Dorothea drags him out of the room with inhuman strength. As soon as the door closes behind her, to poor, speechless Bernadetta’s gawking face, Dorothea whirls on him and plants her hands on her hips. “We’ve got trouble. One of our tech members just dropped out.”

“Okay?”

“One of our _last_ tech members. So now we’ve only got two guys doing the heavy lifting for us, and _that’s it._ ” Dorothea looks like she’s getting more and more frustrated with every word she says.

“I’m still not seeing how this at all concerns me.”

“Joi—”

“No.”

Dorothea folds her arms across her chest, leaning back against the wall. “I can do this all day and for the rest of the year, Lin. You might as well give up now and _joi—_ ”

“No.” Linhardt scowls. “ _You_ give up, Dorothea. You really think I’m going to join _now?_ I’d sooner roll over and die before you make me do any heavy lifting.”

“Not that! You’ll be in charge of costumes and makeup and stuff.” Dorothea grins. “We’ll look for someone else for sounds and lights, but we _need_ a student to do costumes for us. And you are absolutely _perfect_ for that job, hello!”

Linhardt wants to bash his head against the doorknob. “You’re kidding. You have to be.”

“Come _on,_ Lin. Just for this year! Please.” She slumps against the wall, the energy draining from her shoulders as she sighs. Dorothea’s smile shifts downwards into a frown, and suddenly the atmosphere feels far more somber than it had been five seconds ago. “It’s my last year. I _need_ it to be perfect. But everyone’s dropping out of clubs because they need time to study for college entrance tests, and…”

 _Ugh…_ It’s certainly true plenty of seniors are only staying in their extra-curricular activities for as long as possible until they can write it down on their college resumé, then kick their clubs to the curb to free up their schedules. Linhardt’s still only a junior right now, so it’s hardly a problem for him yet, but Dorothea is giving him such a miserable look that even he can’t ignore the little snake of pity sneaking up on him.

If it’s just for one year… and if he doesn’t have to do any of the muscle work…

With a heavy sigh, Linhardt crosses his arms. “Do I even look like a theatre kid to you? I don’t know the first thing about drama.”

Dorothea gives him a Look, you know, one of her infamous Looks that just _means_ something bad is on the horizon and ready to strike when she so calls for it. She’s like the ruler of bad omens. “Yeah, _but_ you had fashion design classes before.”

“That. Was. _Years._ Ago.” His mother had dragged him kicking and sleeping to all sorts of extra tutoring sessions, trying to narrow down his interests into something specific he could profit off of if not medicine, and Linhardt had stayed in fashion design a little longer than the rest. It was really only because drawing bad sketches of clothes was marginally easier than cooking or martial arts, and his teacher let him doodle on the backs of spare paper sometimes.

“ _Yeah,_ but you still _learned_ stuff, didn’t you?”

“I… guess. It really isn’t mu—”

“See? Perfect! _And,_ ” Dorothea adds, a sly grin creeping up her face, “since you’d be our only costume person, you’d get to take _you-know-who’s_ measurements.”

Linhardt freezes in place.

“Doesn’t that sound great!” Dorothea’s grin widens to freaky, evil-cartoon-villain levels. “Oh, you’d be our only makeup person too. So you’d _also_ get to do you-know-who’s makeup! Get up close and personal with his face! Imagine the tension, the _sparks_ as you two come closer and closer, separated only by a single brush—”

“ _Okay!_ You’ve said enough!” Linhardt snaps. He just _knows_ his face is flaming, and he blames Dorothea for the frankly _indecent_ thoughts running through his head right now. Why! Why did he have to go and tell her every embarrassing thing there is to know about himself!?

Dorothea looks ready to squeal. “Wait! Think about the darkness of the backstage in the auditorium! The privacy, the _nearness,_ imagine what you two could _do_ in all that _space—_ ”

Linhardt sinks to the floor. “Fine! Fine, just shut up!”

“You’ll do it? You’ll join!?”

“ _Yes,_ just _please,_ for the love of God—”

Dorothea spins in a circle and pumps her fist in the air. “Yes! I knew it! Lin, if I’d known it would be this easy to convince you, I would’ve introduced you to Ferdie in your freshman year!”

Linhardt buries his face in his hands, and wonders when exactly his life had spiraled so terribly out of control.

It probably wasn’t Linhardt’s best idea to develop a crush.

In his defense, he hadn’t done it on purpose. In fact, after the disaster that was Claude in his freshman year, he had gone through extensive lengths to make sure he would never develop a crush again, period, and it had worked for a solid two-and-a-half years. It had been amazing. The best two-and-a-half years of his life, though only romantically speaking. He _is_ in high school, after all.

And then Dorothea had asked for his _one-time_ help with her show’s technical difficulties, and Ferdinand Aegir had just so happened to walk in the tech booth at the same time Linhardt was working on sounds and lights, and, well.

Yeah.

 _It’s not a big deal,_ Linhardt tells himself, over and over as he follows Dorothea to the auditorium. _It’s not a big deal, you don’t actually like him, you just think he’s got nice eyes and extremely unfair bone structure, you don’t have a crush._ “I don’t like him,” he says, aloud. You know, just to cement that fact.

Dorothea gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. “Who are you trying to convince?”

“Myself,” Linhardt grumbles. “I don’t like him. He’s just nice on the eyes. That’s it.”

“Mm. Okay. Sure. Keep telling yourself that.” Then, without waiting another second, Dorothea flings the doors to the auditorium open with a flourish. “Everyone! I found ourselves a makeup guy! For now, Lin, we just need to set up lights real quick for this rehearsal. You know what to do from last time, right?”

Linhardt nods. Already he can see Edelgard’s head poking out from backstage and Hubert glancing up at him from a script, and that’s as far as he’s willing to go in terms of how many people he’s going to be seeing today. “Don’t you dare do anything… you know.”

Dorothea gives him her typical smile, the one that has freshmen falling to their knees in worship. “What _ever_ do you mean?”

Unfortunately for Linhardt, he had been born with natural theatre-related talents—except for anything actually related to acting—and he honestly hates that it had only taken him a few minutes of tinkering around in the tech booth to figure out how to operate the sound board. Even now, as he ascends the stairs up to the booth and flicks on the lights, the humming of the audio system greets him like a friend.

“I hate you,” he mumbles, though he’s not sure if he’s talking to the sound board, the audio system, or Ferdinand Aegir somewhere else in the auditorium.

Much as he hates the job, Linhardt gets to work quickly—there’s a copy of the script sitting on a nearby desk, so he snatches it up, ignores the illegible name scribbled in cursive at the top, and follows the directions when Edelgard, club president, calls for rehearsal to begin. The show they’re doing this time is a rendition of some old musical that Linhardt just vaguely recognizes the name of, with Dorothea playing one of the lead roles. He isn’t paying too much attention to the rest of the actors, but it looks like Lorenz is a lead too, for some reason.

The sound of shoes clanging against the metal steps startles Linhardt out of his work mode. “Hello,” a familiar voice calls, “is anyone here? I believe I left my script…”

“Oh.” Linhardt squints at the name written on the first page of the script he’s using, but the handwriting is simply impossible to read. He’s aware he’s being hypocritical, but at least he’s self-aware. “Er, it might be this one.” He checks to make sure he isn’t needed for the current scene, then stands up and turns around to hand the script over to… to…

“I’m sorry,” Linhardt says, voice perfectly flat, dropping back down onto his chair and ripping the front page off the script. “I think you left it elsewhere. This one’s mine.”

“W-What are you doing?” Ferdinand Aegir, God damn him, yelps. “That is almost certainly mine! This is my name, right here!” He grabs the torn paper out of the air and holds it up for Linhardt to see, as if it’s something he cares about.

“No,” Linhardt says, facing straight ahead of him, “this one’s mine.” He gets a nearby pencil (that isn’t his either), writes his initials on the top page of the script, and holds it up as if using a reverse Uno card. “See? This is my name.”

“You wrote that just now,” Ferdinand points out.

“Did I? I don’t see the problem. Hurry on now.” Linhardt does his best to wave Ferdinand away as casually and dismissively as possible.

Ferdinand frowns. “Linha—”

“ _Leave._ ”

With one last miserable glance at the script in Linhardt’s hands, Ferdinand turns away and descends the stairs.

As soon as Linhardt hears the door click shut down below, he groans and buries his face in his palms. Why hadn’t he been able to just stand up and hand the stupid script over like any logical, rational, self-respecting person? He’s sixteen, not six. He shouldn’t have done that, he _knows,_ and yet he hadn’t been able to stop himself from panicking and driving Ferdinand away as fast as he could.

The last straw was probably his name on Ferdinand’s tongue. If Linhardt had to hear his name in that voice, he’s not sure what he might have done.

With a sigh, Linhardt stares down at the script on his lap. At least now he doesn’t have to worry about printing himself a new script, even if this one is going to be harder to follow than a clean copy. On closer inspection—by actually looking at the dialogue rather than just the stage directions—many of the lines are highlighted, and there are arrows pointing to in-depth notes in the same cursive handwriting that Linhardt can only dream of reading.

 _Ferdinand’s_ cursive handwriting. Right. Of course. The fact that this script belonged to him is going to be far too difficult to forget.

Then again, Linhardt muses, maybe it’d be better for both of them if he actively avoids and drives Ferdinand away. For one thing, there isn’t any particular reason for them to become anything more than acquaintances, because it’s absolutely not like Linhardt has a crush. For another, maintaining a distance between them would lessen a lot of Linhardt’s non-crush-related suffering. Honestly, even if Linhardt _did_ have a crush on Ferdinand— _which he doesn’t_ —then it wouldn’t matter much either, because someone like Ferdinand would hardly have a crush _back._

Organizing all the thoughts in his head is somehow calming. Linhardt spins the revolving chair he’s sitting on around a few times, just for fun, then nods decisively to himself. For the rest of the year—or for however long Dorothea needs him—Linhardt is going to do his utmost best to keep Ferdinand as far away from him as possible. This is going to be the most effort he’s ever exerted in basically anything in his life, and the thought alone already sounds tiring, but if it will benefit him in the end, even Linhardt can understand he needs to work hard for this.

He returns to the script, using the pencil from earlier to start scribbling down additional notes next to the stage directions. Linhardt has no idea how he’s going to do this, but he will not— _cannot_ —fail.

Linhardt fails.

This is not exactly a rare occurrence. Linhardt is used to trying out something new, failing at it, and quickly giving up on trying again because not automatically being good at something is more than a little bothersome.

This, though, is an entirely new level of failure.

Ferdinand winces when Linhardt pulls at the measuring tape too hard. “T-That’s a little tight, Linh—”

“No, it’s not,” Linhardt says. What is with Ferdinand’s obsession with saying his name as many times as he can? Linhardt’s had to cut him off at least three different times by now. He loosens the measuring tape anyway, but doing so without losing hold of it altogether is difficult when his hands won’t stop shaking. _Why_ won’t they stop shaking? He wishes he knew.

Dorothea hadn’t been lying when she told him Linhardt would be the only costume designer in the club. He had tried (and failed miserably) to plead sudden, violent illness when Edelgard told him to take the actors’ measurements, but Edelgard only fixed him with a stern glare and told him to get to work already. “No one else can do your job for you,” she said. “Literally.”

So Linhardt had gone through the list of club members. True to Edelgard and Dorothea’s words, there was literally no one else who could do passable makeup and costume design (though Lorenz had supposedly made an attempt). Everyone else was either an actor, Hubert, or Edelgard.

How had the theatre club survived this long? Linhardt has the strange sensation that they’re like those cockroaches Mother finds crawling around in the old storage room whenever she does spring cleaning, and no matter how much she screams and throws the broom around, they simply refuse to die. Linhardt always retreats to his room when that happens, and he dearly wishes he could do the same right now.

But, no, he’s stuck in the dressing room, measuring Ferdinand’s arms and shoulders and waistline, because Linhardt is an idiot and Dorothea is a menace.

“By the way, I am glad you finally joined the theatre club,” Ferdinand speaks again, much to Linhardt’s consternation. “Dorothea is always talking about how she would convince you one day, and then she did! Right when the last member of our production crew left, too. I was so terribly worried we would not find someone in time for our show!”

“Er… yes,” Linhardt manages. The silence that follows is awkward, and Ferdinand is still smiling at him, but all Linhardt wants to do now is get the measurement for Ferdinand’s chest and flee the dressing room before he goes into cardiac arrest. “Dorothea was very convincing.”

Ferdinand brightens. “She is, is she not? What exactly did she say to convince you to join, anyway?”

Linhardt drops the measuring tape. “Sorry?”

“I asked what—”

“I mean, sorry, I have to go,” Linhardt says, looking down at his nonexistent watch. Ferdinand follows his gaze, looking nonplussed. “I just remembered I… have a prior commitment to the, uh. The… newspaper club. Can you ask someone else to do the rest of the measurements?”

“But you are the only member of the production crew, L—”

“Goodbye,” Linhardt says, and sprints out of the dressing room.

Blessedly enough, the rest of the theatre club are milling about elsewhere, as Linhardt passes by no one down the stairs and through the auditorium. He slumps against the double doors of the theater as soon as he closes them behind him, and heaves a heavy sigh.

He had panicked again, and this time it had been a far more knee-jerk reaction than the previous time. Linhardt could have just lied about what Dorothea had said. Maybe he could’ve called it a bet of some sort, or maybe he could’ve said someone paid him to join, or maybe he could’ve just pretended Dorothea had finally worn him down enough for him to say yes, which isn’t far from the truth. So why are these thoughts only coming to him now? Why did he run?

Why can’t he stop running away?

“Um… Linhardt?”

Linhardt blinks blearily, looking up from his still-shaking hands. Standing by the stairway to the fourth floor is Bernadetta, clutching her notebook to her chest. Pretending she hadn’t just caught him in the middle of a crisis, Linhardt straightens and manages, “Oh, Bernadetta. What is it?”

“Have you seen my sewing kit? I think I left it somewhere around here…”

Linhardt frowns. “I… don’t know.” Under any other circumstances, he’d offer to look for it—it’s entirely possible someone assumed the sewing kit might belong to the club, after all—but right now, returning to the auditorium is the absolute last thing he wants to do right now. “I’ll keep an eye out,” he settles.

“Oh, t-thank you—”

The doors slam open. Linhardt nearly topples face-first onto the floor, but thankfully Bernadetta reacts fast and catches him despite being an entire head shorter. “ _Linhardt!_ ” a familiar voice rings out, echoing through the hallway, quickly followed by harried stomping. “What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be—”

“Taking measurements, I _know,_ Edelgard,” Linhardt grumbles, picking himself off of a shocked-still Bernadetta. “I just, mm, got a call. From Bern here. It’ll only be a minute.”

Edelgard places her hands on her hips, mouth still twisted in an impatient scowl. “Don’t lie to me. Ferdinand said you looked strange and ran out in a hurry because you had to see the newspaper club… that you aren’t even a part of. If you needed a break, just say so. Don’t take too long.”

“How unexpectedly gracious,” Linhardt mutters. “Does this warrant a thank-you?”

“I heard that.” Edelgard’s gaze flickers over to Bernadetta, who has been steadily inching to hide behind Linhardt more and more. “Hello. You’re Bernadetta, from the school newspaper?”

Bernadetta freezes like a deer trying to decide between hiding or fleeing. “Yeah. H-Hi.”

Linhardt clears his throat, deciding he might as well return now and leave the girls to their own devices, only to notice what Edelgard is holding in one hand. “Bernadetta, isn’t that your sewing kit?”

“Eh?” Bernadetta follows where Linhardt points, and her eyes widen to the size of saucers. “ _Eh?_ Y-You’re right!”

“Oh, is this yours? Someone picked it up and thought it might belong to the theatre club.” Edelgard steps forward and hands the small, cutesy container over. It takes a long moment and a confused look from Edelgard before Bernadetta hurriedly accepts it, the sewing kit now joining her notebook in her arms. “Be sure not to lose it again.”

“T-Thank you!” Bernadetta stammers, staring up at Edelgard with—oh, no—sparkling eyes. “Thank you so much! I-I won’t forget this!”

And then she escapes, barreling down the stairs without stumbling once.

Edelgard blinks. “She won’t forget this? Was that a threat?” She gives Linhardt a stern look, as if reminding him he has basically no excuse to remain out here anymore now that Bernadetta has fled, then returns to the auditorium.

Linhardt stares at the double doors looming threateningly before him, before shaking his head trudging inside once more.

He wishes he were more surprised when, the next day during lunch break, Bernadetta sets her lunch tray down on the table so hard her water spills onto Ashe’s hand. “Linhardt,” she says, as firmly as her squeaky voice can get, “you—you absolutely have to let me help with the theatre club!”

Linhardt _hmms_ and continues chewing his sweet bread. Ashe sighs and wipes the water off with some tissue. Through a mouthful of food, Caspar asks, “What’re you talking about, Bernie?”

Bernadetta takes her seat. “E-Edelgard helped me, so I want to return the favor! I’ll do anything I can. Just say the word and I’ll be there!”

“Mmmm.” Linhardt mulls it over. Bernadetta is decent at drawing—a lot better than him, actually—and her creativity knows no bounds. The only reason she hadn’t passed the auditions for the art club was because she ran out in the middle of the interview when the president made fun of her stutter. And it would certainly be nice to have someone do all the work for him.

Thinking about it, why didn’t Dorothea just ask Bernadetta for help? With how motivated she seems now, Linhardt’s fairly sure he can just get her to replace him. “Okay. That sounds good.”

Bernadetta gasps. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll teach you how to use the sound board, but that’s it, okay?”

“W-Wait.” Bernadetta’s eyes bug out. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“Well, you sound like you’ll do well on your own—”

“No!” Bernadetta cries, latching onto Linhardt’s arm. It’s supremely uncomfortable considering she’s sitting across him and the table is between them, but Bernadetta and her desperate energy makes it work somehow. “I-I can’t do it alone! You saw how I ran away from Edelgard yesterday. I need you there!”

Ashe looks entertained. “Yeah, Linhardt, you can’t just leave the club when you haven’t even been a member of it for a week.”

“And you _promised_ Dorothea!” Caspar adds, like Linhardt needs a reminder.

He groans and shoves some more bread into his mouth. Who was he kidding? This theatre club really is exactly like the roaches at home—they just _won’t go away._ “Okay, okay, fine, urgh. Come to the club meeting today, Bern, and you can talk to… whoever to see if they’ll let you help. Though I’m sure they will. They need it. Badly.”

Bernadetta nods, the fires of determination blazing in her eyes in a way Linhardt has never seen on her outside of her working on a new fanfiction. “You got it!”

Once again, Linhardt wishes he were more surprised when he’s the one who has to do all the talking for her, because of all people, it’s _Hubert_ who handles stuff like scheduling. “She’s a member of the school paper, so she’ll only be available whenever they don’t have any meetings or deadlines,” Linhardt explains, mostly fueled by the vigorous nods Bernadetta is giving him while also hiding behind him. “But she’d still like to help whenever and however she can. Is that alright?”

Hubert stares down at them. “Is there a reason you are acting as her mouthpiece?”

“Answer the question.”

“It sounds acceptable, certainly,” Hubert says, rolling his eyes. “I hate to admit it, but we need all the production help we can get. And by ‘we,’ I mean you and I.”

Linhardt winces—right, Hubert is in charge of anything related to technical aid, like projections and edits and whatnot. Really, he just looks like the sort of person who has graphic design as their burden. “Right… Bernadetta is good at art and design, but especially writing. If there’s anything you need for the script, she’ll do well.”

Hubert nods. “Perfect. I shall set her to work right away.”

“…Right away?”

Before Hubert can answer—though he doesn’t particularly look like he’d been planning to—the doors to the tech room burst open and footsteps clang up the metal stairs in a hurry. “Hubert!” a deathly familiar voice shouts. “There you are! I wanted to talk about—”

Ferdinand skids to a stop in front of the three of them. “Oh, hello,” he says, looking bewildered when he meets Bernadetta’s eyes. “Are you a new member too?”

Bernadetta swallows back what might be her shyness and nods, her fists clenched at her sides. “I-I’m Bernadetta! But you can call me Bernie! I’ll do my very best starting today!”

Ferdinand looks surprised, but instantly beams. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Bernadetta! I look forward to your help! Ah, but we must talk later, I absolutely must speak with Hubert—”

“Whatever it is, I am sure you may tell Linhardt for now,” Hubert interrupts, voice perfectly flat. “Bernadetta, come. It is time to begin.”

“Be… Begin? Begin with what?” Bernadetta whispers.

All Linhardt can offer is a shrug. He considers telling Bernadetta not to worry, since Hubert tends to make things sound scary and threatening and dangerous when he’s actually just going to show Bernadetta how to use Photoshop or something. Instead he goes with, “It’ll be fine. I’ll come with y—”

“Stay right here. Rehearsal starts in five.” Hubert casts Linhardt a suspicious look, his gaze flicking over to Ferdinand for a moment, before heading down the stairs, Bernadetta hurrying to keep up with his longer legs.

In less than a minute, Linhardt finds himself alone with Ferdinand in the tech booth. Again.

Ferdinand clears his throat. “Er. E… Excuse me, then.”

“Wait,” Linhardt says, puzzled. His heart is still beating like a war drum in his chest, but he has enough sense of mind to keep his head in the game (or show, as it may be). “I… thought you had a problem? I assume Hubert will not be hearing you out for a while.”

Ferdinand shuffles and squirms in place for a moment before mumbling something too quiet for Linhardt to understand. “Sorry, what was that?” he asks, as politely and not-panicked as he can.

“I—I said that I do not wish to make you uncomfortable in my presence!” Ferdinand exclaims, immediately ducking his head after speaking as if in shame.

Linhardt doesn’t even have time to be confused before Ferdinand barrels on, gaze still fixed on the floor. “I-I thought it may have been nerves or something, but… I noticed you seem to do your utmost best to avoid me! By running out of the room or making me leave or… or all sorts of things. So I have come to understand that you… hate me… and do not want me near you, and I must respect your desires. I will learn costume design and makeup on my own! I plan on asking Dorothea for advice. So you need not trouble yourself with me, Li—ahem. I will not speak your name either.”

Linhardt waits another few seconds before asking, “Done?” When Ferdinand nods, cheeks flushed from either exertion or embarrassment (or both), Linhardt sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and says the first thing he thinks of. “I don’t hate you, Ferdinand.”

“What?” Ferdinand’s head snaps back up like a spring. “But you—”

“You were right the first time. It was just nerves,” Linhardt lies, smooth as a snake. “I don’t hate you, you know. I mean, it’s just… I don’t… do well around strangers. Or people I don’t really know. I’m already friends with Dorothea, so it’s fine, but I’m not terribly familiar with you. So it was a kind of… reflex. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

Relief and realization alike dawn on Ferdinand’s face like daybreak on the horizon. “You… _don’t_ hate me?” he repeats.

“I don’t hate you,” Linhardt confirms. “So you don’t have to w—”

“Oh! What a momentous occasion!” Ferdinand practically flings himself towards Linhardt as if to hug him, but just as Linhardt mentally steels himself for what looks like his cause of death, Ferdinand stops short just a step away from him. Instead of a hug, he chatters on excitably, which Linhardt will grudgingly take over any form of physical contact. “I was absolutely certain you wanted nothing to do with me! I cried to three different people about this for days.”

“You what now?”

“But I am so glad you do not feel that way!” Ferdinand actually wipes at his eyes. “Does that mean we are friends? Or, no, that you are at least willing to become friends with me? This is wonderful! Linhardt, I will do my absolute best to be your friend! Just give me a few days to prepare. Watch! I will blow you away with my performance in the rehearsals from hereon!”

Linhardt opens his mouth, but he has no idea what to reply to in there—that no, he’s fine with keeping Ferdinand as simply an acquaintance? that Linhardt hardly cares how Ferdinand performs in the rehearsals? that Ferdinand is standing _way too close_ to him right now?—but before he can even try to choose one of those, Ferdinand is already rushing down the stairs and out of the tech booth. He hadn’t even told Linhardt whatever he had wanted to say to Hubert.

With an exhausted groan, Linhardt flops onto the revolving chair and leans back to stare up at the ceiling. Why had he said all that? He’d told himself to keep a distance from Ferdinand, and though he’d failed a few times, Ferdinand seemed to have figured it out well enough. If Linhardt had just let him keep thinking that Linhardt hated him, Ferdinand probably would have thrown all his effort into avoiding Linhardt back, which is saving Linhardt the effort of running away.

But Ferdinand had looked so… dejected. And Linhardt hates that he knows how it feels like, for people to dislike you for some reason you can’t even understand or comprehend, for people to tell you something about them just _bothers_ them, and no matter what Linhardt says, there are always going to be people who look at him and his lack of motivation for anything that doesn’t interest him enough and see it as lethargy, irresponsibility. Laziness. He doesn’t think there’s another word he hates more than that.

Besides, does Linhardt even want to keep running away like this? A year is long. He can’t run away from something—from someone—inevitable.

“This is not a crush,” he murmurs to himself. “I don’t like him.”

But the only response he gets is the audio system whirring behind him, and Linhardt has a feeling it’s trying to tell him that he is, in fact, an idiot with a crush.

**Author's Note:**

> i am REALLY busy with other WIPs and projects right now, but i definitely hope to continue this soon! >:)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/featherxs)


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